Where does this slippery slope lead?

puts on swimsuit and slides - Whee!

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Problem #1 with listing titles in thread headers is that nobody ever remembers to update those things.

Boxed Set was still saying "Farscape, Smallville, and Due South" (and only the vaguest hint beyond there, to avoid becoming General TV) long after it was, in actuality, the thread where we talked about Stargate and Mansquito and various other things.

I like Hec's idea of quick-creation and pruning, although I wonder about getting the word out on such things. The real problem I'm talking about is inertia, which is legion and normal (no point in everybody being self-appointed police till there's a problem), but doesn't lead to efficient functioning.

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I just don't see that the virtues of the clear bright lines and the negatives of the slippery slope are so significant that they outweigh (what I think is) the mandate to foster discussion.

From my perspective, the desire to impose structure by defining the thread and a fairly strict maintenance of that focus is more counter productive than letting the threads evolve. A fairly large and coherent group of Premium folks want to discuss some FX shows there.

The real positive effect of that is that there's more good discussion. The real negative effect is fairly abstract and nugatory - the thread definition gets fuzzier. Does it descend into a nattery mess of free for all discussion? I don't think so. Does it become a de facto General TV Thread. I don't think so.

So for those invested in maintaining the clear bright lines, I'm just wondering if you think it's more valuable to dissuade discussion to maintain those bright lines? Are you unconcerned with fostering discussion, thinking it will happen anyway? Or do you just have a strong, innate anti-thread proliferationist philosophy that wants to resist thread expantion or thread drift?

And I will state up front I think "they can discuss it in Natter" is a false option. Natter does not sustain focused in-depth discussion of any show.

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I'm kind of leaning towards proposing a provisional or probationary thread for the FX shows, or provisionally expanding the definition of Premium.

I'm ready to just push the discussion in a different direction.

I also think that the positions on this discussion have become fairly set over time and maybe that in itself is less useful for the board. I'm eager to throw some stuff against the wall and see if it sticks.

The book club thread didn't work, but it was useful to try it just because we learned something about our culture. What kind of discussion we can readily maintain here. In short, I'm feeling experimental and curious to test theories instead of arguing them.

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I don't feel that maintaining bright lines dissuades discussion. Rather I think it facilitates it, by allowing newcomers and new-to-the-show-comers to easily find where the discussion is happening. I think it avoids ongoing meta with discussion inthread about whether or not a particular show is appropriate and thus improves the signal to noise ratio.

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David speaks for me.

Also, I should point out that I don't watch most of the new shows under consideration for inclusion in the thread, and I'm generally pretty spoiler-averse. However, without people talking about shows that seem to be similarly situated to shows I already like, I'd have a hard time finding new shows to watch. So, generally speaking, the possibility of learning that X character is doing Y in Season N isn't going to put me off the show.

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improves the signal to noise ratio.

I totally said static to noise back there, didn't I? This is what I wanted -- signal to noise.

::is dUm::

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I'm kind of leaning towards proposing a provisional or probationary thread for the FX shows, or provisionally expanding the definition of Premium.

I think that defining a thread by television channel is a clear way to let people know where to discuss a given show.

Beyond that, I'm not sure it's useful. Because it sounds to me like the *type* of discussion that SA -- and others (Corwood, David, amych?) -- want to have is a discussion that is able to encompass shows that air on more than one channel.

For instance, SA once told me about the similarities between Brian Kinney from Queer As Folk and the dude from Nip/Tuck who also was on Charmed (can't remember his name; not important for my example anyway).

Queer as Folk aired on HBO or maybe Showtime (uh, I think), and Nip/Tuck was on FX. Right now, that discussion couldn't take place, given how the Premium thread is currently defined (HBO, yes; FX, no). And, like David said, Natter is too diffuse to sustain such discussion.

It sounds to me that what's wanted is a thread where in-depth discussion of complex shows can take place. SA, Corwood, David, et al.: is that a more or less accurate statement?

Issues with such a thread:

(1) Define "in-depth."

(2) Define "complex shows."

(3) If a thread already exists for a "complex show" (Heroes, let's say, or Drive), then where does that show get discussed?

(4) Holy crap, all the whitefont. Or, conversely, all the spoilage.

I don't have an answer, and I don't really have a dog in this hunt. I'm just trying to help tease out what kind of a thread is really wanted. It doesn't sound like it has anything to do with what show airs on what channel, and it doesn't actually sound like it has much to do with fucking and swearing.

It sounds like....a general teevee thread, actually, with the stated intention of in-depth discussion.

In-depth discussion is good, but what's the best way to facilitate that?

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OK, I've been thinking. I'll try not to ramble. I do like discussing TV with people here. And I've found myself going to TWoP more and more often to see what people think about shows. However, I don't want to lose natter in the process of creating threads with more and more specialized thread groups-- I also like the melting pot aspect of natter.

I am starting to think that I could go along with three TV threads:

• one for drama, and that includes Premium (check the dramatic forum at TWoP, that's what I mean);
• one for comedy (e.g. Adult Swim, HIMYM) and
• one for non-fiction tv-- this would include docus like Planet Earth and TAL, and reality television like TAR.

Not ready to make a formal proposal yet; I'd wonder if I'm not seeing the potential shows that fall in the cracks (anime?). Yes, this is three general TV threads. But it seems clear to me that we're not serving our needs without dealing with the TV thread problem. As far as whitefont goes, yes, it would be a lot of whitefont with the name of the show at the beginning. It would be like natter.

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Uh, or What Bon Said.

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